Here For You

by J. P. Oliver

  “So, like, a prank caller?” Jay asked.

  Gavin snorted. “If it’s a prank, it’s a lame one. Like, it’s annoying, and it’s weird, but I can’t imagine what possible thrill our little ghostie is getting out of it.”

  After that, Jay would ask Gavin how “our little ghostie” was doing, or if “our little ghostie” had called lately. They’d joke about it once or twice a week.

  “He’ll get bored eventually,” Gavin said. “Or she will.”

  “It,” said Jay. “I think ghosties are its.”

  They both chuckled, but I could tell neither of them thought it was funny.

  It wasn’t funny to me, either. I was scared. I started flinching any time the phone rang. If I was close enough to Gavin, I’d listen and see how quickly he hung up.

  Our little ghostie called a lot.

  It started wearing on Gavin, too. One day I was stocking the journals and pens at the front counter while Gavin did the order. The phone rang.

  “Thank you for calling Sit and Sip. Gavin speaking. How can I make your day better?”

  And then a pause.

  “Hello?” Gavin repeated, a milligram of strain in his voice.

  Another pause.

  “Listen, kid.” His voice was low now. A whisper. I could hear Gavin was still wearing his smile, but his tone made it clear he’d just plastered it on in case a patron saw him. “I don’t know what jollies you’re getting with your little stunt, but it’s tiring. If I get one more bullshit call like this, I’m calling the cops. Grow up.”

  He hung up, not quite slamming the receiver down.

  I swallowed, bracing myself.

  “Our little ghostie?” I asked, trying to smile.

  He picked up his clipboard and uncapped his pen with his teeth. “Our little punk,” he said, jaw clenched.

  ...

  Ghostie didn’t call for the rest of the day. I listened.

  Ghostie didn’t call the next morning either.

  I couldn’t relax, but I started imagining a time when I might relax. That helped a little.

  It was after lunch when Gavin breezed into the stockroom, a thick manila envelope in his hand. He, at least, seemed calmer.

  “Beck, buddy, you have two addresses now. Why are people sending your mail here?”

  “What?”

  “This is for you. Came in today’s mail.”

  I looked at the envelope. There was my name, BECK POWELL, in black Sharpie. Underneath it, c/o Sit and Sip, and the store’s address.

  “What is it?”

  “Beck, I like you a lot, but not enough to screen your mail.” He smiled, eyes flashing as he passed the envelope to me. “I’d say it was another care package from Flores if you weren’t seeing him on the daily.”

  I finally took it from his hand. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll give you your privacy,” Gavin said, eyebrows waggling playfully, and turned to go.

  I almost asked him to stay. The envelope felt weird in my hand. Just off, somehow.

  But I didn’t. Don’t be a sissy, boy.

  I waited till the swinging doors stopped swinging, then sat on the cold floor and tore the envelope open with my thumb.

  A note, on heavy paper, in the same thick black print used for the address:

  Are you tough enough to give him what he really needs?

  And then pictures. Lots of pictures.

  Jamie’s face was clear in some of them, but even if it hadn’t been, I’d learned his body well enough to recognize it.

  My boyfriend. Naked. With another man.

  A man thin, like me, but wired with muscles. He looked taller, maybe, too. His face was cut off in the pictures, but his body was shaved smooth. His skin was almost as white as mine.

  And he was bound. Contorted. Shoulders straining, hands tied, ankles spread. In some pictures, rough ropes circled his chest. In some, his nipples were pinched in heavy clips. In one, his penis was, too.

  I wanted to cry and scream and vomit.

  But I kept flipping.

  In one, his head was visible, but cloaked in a black hood, masked. I wasn’t sure how he could breathe in a mask like that.

  In another, his backed arched painfully over a table. And Flores was there, his broad back and tanned skin immediately recognizable.

  There were more, and I saw them and felt the pain coming off of the glossy pictures, even as I stopped noticing details.

  And then the last picture.

  The thin man was alone, unbound, standing erect in front of a mirror. The flash from his phone obscured his face. A selfie.

  He was naked. Perfectly naked and perfectly smooth. He was hard.

  But his skin...

  It was rubbed raw.

  Angry red welts crossed his chest, his biceps, his thighs. I knew if I flipped through the pictures again—I gagged at the thought—I could match those welts to where the restraints had been. His stomach was red like someone had pummeled him, and the beginnings of bruises had begun to blossom.

  Beneath this last picture, the most horrifying of all, was another note. Same paper, same print.

  If you don’t love pain, he’ll never love you.

  I dropped it. I dropped the whole fucking mess, letting the pictures scatter across the stockroom floor. My eyes burned as I pushed through the back door, and I ran.

  16

  Jamie

  I would tear Harlan apart if that’s what it took to get Beck back.

  Not that I thought he wanted to see me. Not after those pictures.

  When Gavin had called me, he’d made it clear that he certainly wasn’t my biggest fan.

  “Where the fuck is Beck?” he’d asked, his voice so sharp and icy I hadn’t recognized it.

  “Perdóneme? Who is this?”

  “Gavin Joy. Where’s Beck?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He’d gone on to tell me about an envelope, and a clutter of dirty pictures in his stockroom, my face visible in more than a few of them. And a missing Beck. A Beck who’d walked off the job with no warning. A Beck who wasn’t in his apartment upstairs, either. Or in the house we shared. A Beck no one had seen for three hours.

  “It’s not like him,” Gavin had concluded. “He’s reliable, and doesn’t really walk the streets alone. And one wonders, Officer Flores, if your pictures had anything to do with that.”

  I’d apologized as best I could, already hauling ass back to the station. I could tell Gavin didn’t buy it.

  But less than two hours later, I was outside the Sit and Sip, staring at a “Sorry! We’re Closed,” sign. A white envelope with Beck’s name was taped to the glass door. I banged on the wooden frame. Moments later, Gavin’s face appeared, looking hopeful. When he saw me, it fell, his eyes narrowing, but he let me in.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said, frosty. I couldn’t be mad. Beck needed a protector, and apparently I’d done a shitty job.

  “Thanks for calling.”

  “Sure.”

  “Look,” I said, finding it hard to meet his gaze, “about those pictures…”

  “I don’t care about the pictures, Flores, except that they made Beck run rabbit. You know how easy he is to trigger.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. I didn’t send them, but I think I know who did. Can I see them?”

  He grew frostier. “Unless you have an identical twin, you’re definitely in most of them.”

  “I know.” I sighed. I liked Gavin, and his devotion to Beck made me respect him, but I didn’t want to discuss my sex life with him, especially the parts that made me queasy myself. “I know exactly which pictures you mean, and I know the other guy in them.” I swallowed, then forced the rest out. “He and I broke up months ago, mostly because…because of the kind of stuff you saw. I did…things to him because he wanted me to. Shit escalated, Gavin. It wasn’t healthy.” I shrugged, looking for the right words. “There was nothing wrong with what Noah wanted, and we were both consenting adults, you know? It was just
...heavier than I wanted. And maybe I handled it badly, but he—this other guy—he’s won’t let me go. I thought he was finally over it, but a few weeks ago he showed up at my job, and then about a week after that I started getting calls. Hang-ups, from different burner phones. All hours of the day and night.”

  “Calls?” Gavin’s voice was still low, still precise, but there was a different tenor to it now.

  “Yeah. I had a colleague check into it, under the table, but he was no help. Even so, I’m sure it’s this guy. My ex. I confronted him about it a couple of days after it started, but he played dumb. When I wouldn’t let it go, he tried to turn it around on me.”

  “We’ve been getting calls, too,” Gavin said, face ashy.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  We stood for a second, then Gavin walked to the counter. He reached beneath it, picking up a manila envelope with the tips of his fingers, like the paper could contaminate. He passed it to me. I removed the contents and flipped through them, more than a dozen photographic reminders of one of the darkest days in my life, a day that pushed me to my emotional limits. The day I’d learned I had it in me to hurt.

  I got to the last photo in the stack. I’d known about the others—lust had, against my better judgment, persuaded me to agree to them. You’re so sexy, Noah had said. It’ll be hot. C’mon, papacito, take a risk.

  But the final picture, the sight of Noah’s bruised body, and the knowledge I’d done that to him—even with his consent, and even considering that I’d happily break him into pieces now for showing these to Beck—made me physically ill. He must have taken the picture after I’d untied him and seen the damage I’d done to him. I’d freaked out. Shut down. Apologized. He’d laughed in my face, called me a wimp, a pansy, told me to be a man and take what was mine.

  I’d spent a couple of days alone, brooding, and ended things when I realized I couldn’t be what he wanted.

  This photo brought those feelings back. Shame and fear of what I could be. Disgust at the whole situation.

  And then the notes. The two notes. As embarrassed as I was to talk to Gavin about this, and as mad as I was at myself, I hurt at the thought Beck might believe these notes, might think this was what I wanted him to be for me.

  I dropped everything back into the envelope. “Yeah. That’s him.”

  Gavin and I stood in the semi-dark bookstore for a moment. Then he nodded, all business, and said, “Well. Us standing here won’t get Beck back. I’ve closed the shop so we can concentrate on finding him, but left notes for him to call me on both the front and back doors. Jay volunteered to wait in his apartment. I’ve got a couple of folks walking the streets, and someone from Harlan PD is sitting across from your house, in case he shows up there.”

  “I called Eli…Detective Mack…on my way down.”

  “Good. I called in, too, obviously. I didn’t think they’d be able to help, officially, but I hoped I could call in a favor.”

  “Yeah…that whole ‘waiting forty-eight hours’ mierda people get from TV shows…”

  “Right? I was shocked they let me fill out a report right away. Unfortunately, there’s a whole lot about Beck I don’t know, even after working with him.”

  I nodded, feeling convicted. There was a lot I didn’t know about Beck, and we were all but living together. I realized in that moment what a coward I’d been. By trying to protect him, I hadn’t asked the right questions. I’d put it off till later, not wanting to risk the happiness of now. And he was missing. Maybe in danger.

  “El que quiere celestre, que le cueste,” I muttered.

  “Huh?”

  I smiled sickly. “‘The man who wants it easy finds it hard.’ Something my grandma used to say.” I chuckled, mostly to cover my nerves. “Not important. I didn’t even realize I’d said it out loud.” I was already exhausted, but every inch of me prickled with a clammy heat. “I’m going to call Eli and tell him about Noah, but—I don’t know. I can’t stay here. I’m going to walk the streets and see what I can see. It probably won’t help, but…”

  “I got it,” he said, looking sympathetic. Whatever had happened in the last few minutes, I guess we were friends again. I was glad. “The shop is home base, I guess. I’ll text you if I hear anything, and you do the same.”

  “Yeah.” And then, on an impulse, I hugged him. I didn’t know I was going to do it till he was in my arms, but I needed human contact. “Thank you for calling, Gavin.”

  He hugged me back, patting my shoulder like a kindly uncle. “We’ll find him. He probably just went somewhere quiet to sort things out. He’ll probably be embarrassed when he learns what a fuss we’re making.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t believe it, though.

  I was just tossing the envelope in my car—I wanted to burn it, but also knew I might need the evidence when I came after Noah for harassment—when a car parked behind me, right in front of the shop. Eli Mack stepped out.

  “Holding up okay, Flores?” He must have seen something in my face.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “I was just about to call you.”

  “And I was about to call you, but in a town this size, driving’s just as quick. Whatcha got for me?”

  I told him about Noah’s request and the phone calls, both to me and the shop, and the photos.

  “Gavin told me about the pictures. Just enough to let me know you’ve taken a walk or two on the wild side.”

  “Not funny, Eli.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. I make bad jokes when I’m stressed. So, this Noah…?”

  “Lind.”

  “This Noah Lind. He’s maybe a little nutty, but would you say he’s nutty enough to actually hurt a guy you were involved with?”

  I shrugged. “A month ago, I’d’ve said no way. I mean, he’s a lawyer, and—”

  “What kind of lawyer?” His sharp voice surprised me.

  “Criminal defense. Why?”

  “Maybe no reason,” Eli said, “but this brings me to why I wanted to get in touch with you. I met Beck Powell’s aunt today. His mom’s brother’s ex-wife.”

  “What?” After weeks of wondering and worrying, I could barely process Eli’s words.

  “Yeah. Gillian Cross, now, though she was Gillian Egan back then. She’s been living overseas for over a decade, but she had some Google alert set or something. Saw her ex had been released from prison, and apparently that lit a fire under her to come back to the States and try to find her nephew. She tracked him to Harlan and walked into my office this afternoon with questions. Anyway, apparently Jerry Egan, formerly with the Hillsboro PD, is a real piece of work.”

  Jerry Egan. I had a name now. A guy I could hunt down, if necessary. I realized I was grinding my teeth, and forced myself to relax.

  Eli saw what the information was doing to me, but went on, slow and steady. “About six months ago, Egan was convicted of possessing and trading child pornography. Nasty stuff, even as that sort of thing goes. And some of it”—he slowed down, looking me in the eye—“some of it looked homemade.”

  For a minute, I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Everything went red and black, and a hot, wet blanket shrouded me.

  “Beck,” I whispered.

  “Flores,” Eli said. His hand was on my upper arm, just resting there, reminding me I wasn’t alone. “Egan was convicted. Sent to CSP. He’s been locked up for more than six months.”

  “Right. Right.”

  “But,” he said, and the hand on my bicep tightened just a bit, “he was released four days ago.”

  I jerked. He held me.

  “What the—”

  “You know what our prisons are like, Flores. How we pack ‘em in. And it looks like this Egan guy is on his last legs. Kidney failure. His lawyer angled to get him a compassionate release.”

  “Who’s his lawyer?” I spat the words.

  “Dunno for sure,” Eli said, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “But I have a guess, and you can bet I’m fixing to find out.”

>   17

  Beck

  Everything hurt.

  Even before I woke, my head throbbed and my throat burned. My shoulders and thighs were tight, and when I moved, they burned, too.

  “I hear you’re fucking Mexicans now.”

  I knew that voice. Suddenly the fear was worse than the pain. I struggled against the tightness and hissed as something tore my skin.

  “I shoulda got your cherry when I had the chance, before you started banging every Tom, Dick, and Pedro in the state.”

  I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry. Nothing made sense.

  “Shoulda done it. God knows I had plenty of chances.” I blinked, trying to clear my vision. “Always reminded me too much of your mother, I guess. Same eyes. But I’ll be dead soon, and got nothing to live for, boy. No savings. No friends. No career.” He smiled at me, eyes dull, teeth yellow. “Might as well get at the one boy I wanted but never did.”

  His voice slowed, as though the act of talking had worn him out, and his chin, bonier than I remembered, touched his chest.

  I had always known it would end like this. I could leave an anonymous tip about the movies on Uncle Jerry’s computer. I could practice being small and quiet until he was arrested. I could pack a bag and scrounge whatever money he’d left lying around, take a bus as far as I could afford, find a place where people were nice, where they were good, where they gave you things and never expected anything back. None of it mattered.

  I had done all of that, but I never really believed I was done with Uncle Jerry.

  He was too strong. He knew too much. He had too many friends. When I dreamed, I dreamed he would find me.

  He’d found me.

  And he would wake up. Maybe soon. And I’d still be here.

  I didn’t know where we were, but it looked familiar. A cabin, dark and cold. Musty. I could see a window behind him, boarded up with rotting plywood.

  I was on a bed. A cot, really. On my stomach, my arms bound behind me. My legs were tied, too, but I couldn’t see the knots.

  Uncle Jerry sat in an armchair, blue and red plaid, leaking ticking from the odd hole. He looked sick. He was…different than I remembered. Older. Thinner.